Arts & Culture

For a boy with little, learning to love a castoff trombone

By Jasmyn Morris

Published February 23, 2024 at 5:09 AM EST

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On a visit to StoryCorps in Phoenix, Gilbert Zermeno told his wife, Pat Powers-Zermeno, about what it was like to grow up poor while yearning to join the school band.

Gilbert Zermeño came from a family without much money. They lived on the plains of West Texas and got by on the $100 a week that Gilbert’s father made working the cotton fields, so when Gilbert wanted to join the school band and play the saxophone, it wasn’t as easy for his mother as just going out and buying a sax.

At StoryCorps, Gilbert explains to his wife, Pat Powers- Zermeño, how, with the help of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he ended up playing not the saxophone, but the trombone.